The battle of YouTube vs. TV has already been decided

According to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, video on the Internet will not take over television watching because “that’s already happened.”

Google held a presentation to advertisers on Wednesday night as part of a week of “NewFronts,” essentially digital media’s version of the TV tradition of promoting programming and selling ads.

In the past YouTube was often compared to TV at meetings such as this, but this time they tried to differentiate themselves to advertisers as a completely different entity. “I thought that YouTube was like TV, but it isn’t. I was wrong,” said Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s global head of content. “TV is one-way. YouTube talks back.” He went on to say that TV is about reach and YouTube is about engagement, engagement of more than 1 billion users per month that is.

It is certainly fascinating to see how YouTube views itself in such a rapidly evolving world for all things media. In a way they are subtly acknowledging that they are not in direct competition with television, but are instead in competition with themselves in developing an entirely different form of media that is separate from legacy broadcast and cable stations.